1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a service providing method and a service providing system from which a card specifying an individual can be easily obtained and plural applications can be loaded in a single card as desired by a user who holds the card.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, individual specified cards that specify individuals who use such cards such as, for example, a financial card, a point service card (Loyalty card), and individual unspecified cards (general-purpose cards) that do not specify the individuals using the cards such as, for example, a pre-paid card, etc. have become widely known.
In order to acquire such an individual specified card especially, a user applies to a prescribed card issue organization for the issuance of a card. When it receives the application, the card issue organization sets individual data of that user in a card after confirming the identity of the user, and it becomes possible to issue a card.
In the case of the individual specified card, as individual data is set in the card, there is such a benefit that the justifiability of a card with a user (a card holder) can be ensured. However, as the card is issued only by an exclusive card issue organization, a user is required to apply to a card issue organization for the issuance of a card.
That is, in order to apply for the issuance of a card, it is necessary for a user to go to a prescribed place (for example, a location of the card issue organization) to make the application directly or to take such a troublesome step as to send personal data to a prescribed place. Further, it was indispensable for the card issue organization to take a troublesome step to confirm the identity of a user and send an issued card to a user.
Further, there are such problems as that a user is only able to choose services that are offered by one card within the range of services offered by a card issue organization and kinds of applications that can be loaded in a card is restricted. Moreover, the design of the card published can also be chosen only in the range of designs that are offered by a card issue organization.
As a result, when a user desires to receive respective services offered by different card issue organizations, a user has to apply for the issue of a card at each of the different card issue organizations and obtain respective cards from each of different card issue organizations. Therefore, there was also such a problem that the number of cards held by a user tends to increase.
Such a problem is also applicable to acquiring an individual unspecified card. That is, in the case of an individual unspecified card, there is a benefit that anybody is able to use a card simply when it is purchased, but there is also a disadvantage that the justifiability of a user cannot be confirmed because no individual data is set in a card. Further, as an individual unspecified card is issued by a different card issue organization than is an individual specified card, there is also such a problem that the number of cards tends to further increase.
In order to solve such problems, an IC card that is commonly usable for plural systems is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. (TOKU-KAI-HEI) 11-39445, wherein a system to download new applications in the IC card is also disclosed.
However, in Japanese Patent Application (TOKU-KAI-HEI) No. 11-39445, a system to initially download an application in an IC card by setting an installation key received from an application issuer system in an application downloading terminal that is installed at a separate place is disclosed. However, there was such a problem that this disclosed system required a user to perform steps at two stages and the user was burdened with a troublesome process.